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worried if I do not return,” I said.
    “I am sorry to have delayed you so. Please allow me to walk you back to the cottage. That will give me the opportunity to present my compliments to that excellent woman.” He frowned. “However, when I think of it, I suppose that your whole family will be out in the fields, taking advantage of this fine day to finish the hay harvest. How is it that you are not helping? How do you find the time to come here in this season?”
    Silently cursing my hasty choice of a false identity and his inquisitiveness, I made no response. The young man grinned.
    “Come,” he continued, “you must have a poor idea of my intelligence. Whoever you are, you are no peasant girl. Peasant girls do not wear silk dresses. And your hands, your wrists, and, may I add, your ankles, of which I had the good fortune to catch a glimpse, are far too delicate for farmwork. Your skin is also too fair for you to have spent much time out in the fields. But so far I do not know much about you, except that you are on my brother’s land without permission and a shameless liar. Will you please tell me your real name?”
    “No.”
    I was looking down at my feet. He sounded amused by the turn of our conversation, which he pursued, still addressing me familiarly, in French. He spoke it, like me, without any trace of Roman accent.
    “Now,” he said, “I did observe, over the past few weeks, a young person with your rather peculiar colouring riding through the streets of Vic. I was told that you were Gabrielle de Montserrat, the youngest sister of the Marquis de Castel. By the way, that giant black horse of yours would do very well for me, but it is unsuitable for a lady. Of course you did not pay attention to me. Someone like me would have been beneath your notice.” He paused. “I hope this teaches you that it is useless to lie, and wrong too.”
    He caught a loose ringlet on my nape and played with it, his fingertips brushing against the back of my neck, as if it had been the most natural of things.
    “A lovely shade of red,” he said, “between the colour of dark gold and that of autumn leaves. It suits those grey eyes of yours to perfection.”
    He had the insolence to address me as thou after admitting to knowing who I was. No one, except my brother, Mamé Labro and Joséphine, ever used the familiar form with me. It made me as angry as the liberties he was taking with my hair. I rose to run away from him and his bad manners. Before I had time to turn around, he seized me by the wrist and, without rising, made me sit down again.
    “One moment, please,” he said. “Would it not be imprudent to turn away so rudely without taking any leave of me? Think that I might tell your brother about this little escapade of yours, of which I do not believe he knows, or would approve if he did. All I am asking in exchange for my silence is that you meet me again here in a few days. If you do, I will be mute as a tomb. You will find me more trustworthy than you yourself have been with me.”
    There was no harm in agreeing to what he wanted since, in the meantime, I could always change my mind and breach a commitment so extorted. I promised to meet him three days later and, without looking back, ran straight to the cottage, where Jewel was waiting for me. I did not see anyone of the Labro household, nor did I wait for them to come home from the fields. Because of the hot, dry weather, they would be impatient to finish the hay harvest and would not return until after dark.
    It is said in French that the night brings counsel. When I undressed at bedtime, I reflected upon the events of that afternoon. I would have been at a loss to describe the impressions the encounter had left on me. The young physician had been rude, but I found this rather reassuring. Joséphine had warned about men who spoke in too friendly a manner. Such was certainly not his case.
    Moreover, my brother, if he learned of the meeting, would no doubt forbid